


Street Cat

by Purrsian



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestors as Parents, F/M, Homestuck AU: Humanstuck, Humanstuck, legal incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 04:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrsian/pseuds/Purrsian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nepeta Leijon is a twenty-six year old street musician working the busy streets of New York City. Karkat is a twenty-seven year old executive of the biggest record labeling company in the nation. A chance encounter snowballs into a relationship that lands in a web of pasts and presents- one that reveals far more than either of them knew about themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Street Cat

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published on my fanficiton account, Caciacoon. I've gone through and edited it to make it a lot easier to read and made a new description. Anyways, I really like reading comments [kudos is really nice too] so I'td make my day if you left either one. Or don't, whatever. I just hope you like it :3

Karkat Vantas opened one eye lazily. Was it really monday? It was, wasn't it. He groaned and sat up, looking at his alarm clock. He had an hour to get to work. The twenty-eight year old man worked at a recording company owned by his father that put out some of the most popular music of the last three years- he was grateful a thousand times over for the job given to him by his dad, but DAMN he had to get up early. 

He swung his legs out of bed and fumbled towards the door of his room. His brother Kankri was already up, as well as his stoner flatmate Gamzee Makara. They all shared a flat, it saved money and they all enjoyed each other's company. Kind of.

"Good morning, brother." Kankri yawned. Karkat narrowed his eyes. Kankri was not usually one to stay up late, Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Kankri the night before at all. 

"Where where you last night?" He asked. Kankri grinned and turned his attention back to the eggs he was making. 

"Nowhere you'll ever be, my single virgin brother." He said in a teasing tone. Gamzee laughed lazily at this. Karkat scowled and threw a wadded-up magazine at his brother. 

"Screw you." He growled as he got out the cereal supplies.

"Sounds like Kk has that figured out already, Karbro." Gamzee drawled. Karkat scowled again, even more grumpily, and pulled the frosted flakes out of the cabinet. Karkt wolfed down the cereal quickly and went to go get dressed for another eight-hour day licensing whatever new fad came through the works.

Nepeta Leijon awoke with a yawn and stretched arms. She looked around the very dark subway tunnel. Actually, she couldn't see a thing. The young twenty-six woman reached and fumbled for the small lantern she kept near her sleeping roll. Her small hand reached the device and pressed the button, illuminating the abandoned tunnel that ran under New York City. She could now see clearly, and took the time to take note where everyone else was. 

Her mother was sleeping on the other side of the tunnel, Porrim was sleeping in a very neat position on parallel to Nepeta, Horuss was a big lump in the middle of the tracks, and her older sister Meulin was sleeping soundly in the arms of the mime Kurloz. She smirked. Of course she was. 

She stood up and stretched felineishly, grabbed her long corduroy bag that held her didgeridoo, and began the trek down the tunnel towards the live tunnels, and eventually towards the entrance where she could make her way to the streets. She had a new street corner in mind she wanted to try out, she hoped it would garner more cash than usual. Sure, she got more money than the guitar players because hey, didges were cool, but she didn't get nearly as much money as her sister, who was a fire-swallower and general street carny, or Porrim, who was an amazing expressionist dancer. She had to prove that she could earn her instrument [she could sell the didge for a lot of money] and she desperately wanted to keep it. So, she rose early and set out to play the street corners of NYC.

Karkat checked his watch. "Shit." he muttered. He had twenty minutes to get to work. He had to walk since he didn't own a car, and he was always overlooked by cabbies. Karkat started to briskly walk, he didn't like to be late at all. Crossing the street hurriedly, he kept his brisk pace until a trance-inducing noise hit his ears. Karkat looked in the direction of the sound. It was a young woman, maybe one or two years his junior, playing a didgeridoo just in front of him, sitting against the brick wall of the building. After a few minutes, the girl looked up. 

"May I help mew, sir? You seem to have drifted pawf!" Karkat blinked. 

"Oh, yeah sorry. You know, you're really good with that didge." Karkat said as he quickly regained his proper mental state. She smiled. 

"Thank mew! I playing it a lot." Karkat softly smiled in return. 

"Have you heard of Xavier Rudd?" he asked. She nodded in exitement. 

"Oh yes, sir! He's quite pawssibly the best didgeridoo player in the country!" Karkat grinned, at least someone what he was talking about. 

"I'm Karkat. Here, you deserve this-" he fished the first bill his fingers found in his pocket. "Here." She stared at it. 

"That is quite a lot of money to a simple street performer like me." She said concernedly. It was a twenty. Karkat shook his head.

"No, no. Keep it. It'll help me, too. If I can't buy McDonald's, I can't eat it." 

Nepeta giggled. "Bye, Karkat." She said as he realized he had to go. "By the way, I'm Nepeta!" she shouted after him. He raised his hand quickly to acknowledge he heard as he bolted through the doors to his officeplace.

Karkat slammed his stuff as quietly as he could on his office desk. "Whew." He said. He had a fairly nice office, a smallish room that had a desk, a computer, a swivel chair, and a small bookshelf. Karkat's job was to personally review each and every musician that came through looking to be signed to a record label, then filter the applications to his father, Mason Vantas, who owned the business. He actually wasn't going to spend a whole lot of time here today, because today would be the day he was going to actually be reviewing the new applicants for Crabcat record labels. Karkat thought the name was funny, considering his name was Karkat and most knew him to be a total crab. He quickly picked up his briefcase again and hustled to the recording room where the twenty some musicians and bands would be, waiting their turn. 

"Shoot. Sorry guys." He said as he entered the room swiftly. "Got a bit held up on the way." He said. His colleague Amy Fisher, whom he suspected liked him, just smiled. 

"It's okay, Karkat. Most of them aren't here either." He shrugged.

"Musician thing." She smiled again. 

"What held you up? You're never late." He tinted a small shade of red, his reason was kind of stupid. "I ran into someone." He said lamely. Amy tried to hug him, for whatever godforsaken reason, but he deftly dodged. Then the musicians filed in. "Ah." Karkat said. "Welcome to Crabcat Record labels. Who wants to go first?"

Nepeta continued to play her didgeridoo, very happily. The twenty dollars was was going to be enough for food and maybe a few trinkets she could sell at a higher price, and she was already getting more. She smiled and nodded at everybody who dropped in anything. A little girl came up and dropped twenty cents, some pigeon feathers, gum wrappers, and bottle caps. Nepeta stopped playing and looked at the girl. She smiled cheekily. 

"Is that enough? I didn't know how much you needed." Nepeta grinned. 

"We cool, little girl. We cool." The girl skipped off back to her parents and Nepeta got back to playing. She looked across the street to a small pariksh thing with trees and a pond and some benches where Porrim was doing her dancing and Kurloz and Meulin were doing their joint act of furious silence. Kurloz noticed her and gave a lazy, quick thumbs-up accompanied by an almost indiscernible grin from her sister. She smiled back at them while she played. Her situation may not be the best, but she really couldn't imagine being anywhere else. She would stay on the streets probably for the rest of her life, she imagined. She was well liked. She had even gotten a nickname used collectively in the surprisingly close-knit community street performers- the Street Cat. Probably had something to do with her constant cat puns and emulations, but she enjoyed the nickname.

Karkat graoned as he walked back to his office, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Well, that was an easy six hours down the drain. Not one of the sixteen new artists had any talent remotely, and Karkat had almost flipped his shit at this one guy who used hashtags, swag, lol, and yolo constantly in real conversations. God. He sat in his poofy chair, marveling at how nice it felt compared to standing for hours on end. He then sat up straighter, cracked his knuckles, and began to type into his computer the data he collected. On the business one- the one that was entered into the log, he forced himself to be civil and put actual grades on them. But on the one he sent to his father [the chief executive of the company] he put SHIT; SHIT; CRAP; TOTAL GARBAGE; NO WAY; CRAP; ASSWIPES. in the grading section. His dad would get a kick out of it. The clock on his desk shaped aptly like grumpy cat rang four times, which meant he was out for the day. "Yes." He fist pumped, grabbed his stuff, and dashed out of the office. "Later dorks!" He called crabbily behind him, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible. A thought occurred to him- one that lifted his spirits slightly, a sweet comparison to the previous hours. Maybe that Nepeta girl would still be there.

**Author's Note:**

> This was kind of short I'm sorry the next one is longer [chapters two and three are already written]


End file.
